Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chris Bart

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:18, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Chris Bart[edit]

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

The article appears to be self-authored based on the IP address tracing to private Bell Internet IP addresses. Although Prof. Bart's accomplishments, if a bit embellished, are not in dispute, I do not think that the article meets the Wikipedia:Notability criteria.

The article largely repeats self-written biographies that appear more like self-promotion than encyclopedic:

McMaster_University faculty biography page (3 citations, including two on DeGroote's Directors College). Incidentally, all references to Prof. Bart on McMaster's websites have been removed, likely as a result of his forced retirement from the University in 2013. References to that 2013 incident and its subsequent litigation have also been scrubbed from this Wikipedia article.
Corporate Missions Inc., of which Bart appears to be both the owner and sole employee. There also does not appear to be any notability to this organisation
Caribbean Governance Training Institute, of which Bart appears to be both the founder and one of five people who work there. Again, no apparent notability to this organisation
Terra Firma corporation, a small real estate financing company at which he is a director.
Biographies from speaking engagements he has done in the past, which have since been removed

This seems largely to fall within the purview of Wikipedia:No_original_research rules, where these biographical sources are largely self-referential. Even his birthdate is dubious, as it would be quite exceptional for an MBA professor to win teaching awards at age 6!

Prof. Bart cites his other accomplishments:

References to some 190 published academic articles in which he's cited as a co-author, as confirmed by Google Scholar.
An endorsement from a private business bookseller published in the CBC.ca for one of his books, which Bart cites as evidence that he had a "number 1 bestselling business book of 2010 in Canada." The Globe_and_Mail link appears dead. Amazon.ca shows a very different tallying of his books' popularity
Various private awards, including a Queen_Elizabeth_II_Diamond_Jubilee_Medal and fellowship at CPA Ontario, of which few recipients have Wikipedia articles for those awards alone

Beyond this, there is very little third-party research to establish notability. Although cited in numerous articles that collectively have a few thousand citations plus a few business texts, his publishing and speaking history is consistent with most academics with careers spanning 3 decades. There do not appear to be any articles or books he has published that are seminal enough to establish notability.

Author(s) have not been notified as the substantive authors do not have accounts. AgarWhisper (talk) 12:45, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep It needs cleanup, but Google scholar shows significant citations of published papers, passes WP:NSCHOLAR. Slywriter (talk) 16:39, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Per Wikipedia:Notability_(academics)#Criteria, if I understand your argument, the article should be kept under criterion 1. There is not a claim of notability on the other 7 criteria. Prof. Bart might have a claim under criterion 5, but it's impossible to verify after McMaster purged references to him on its website.

Because he's a co-author and not principal author of his 'top' publications, I'm not convinced that the criterion for having "a significant impact in their scholarly discipline" has been met. I never heard of him in any of the Ontario business schools I attended (and I took governance and strategy courses). I appreciate the standard is subjective, but I can think of far more notable Ontario business professors for inclusion into Wikipedia.

Nevertheless, I definitely agree on the clean-up, considering that many statements are poorly (if at all) supported by the references and that there is suppression of the 2013 McMaster disciplinary incident that compelled his retirement AgarWhisper (talk)

Weak keep. Seems that there's enough, just. BoyTheKingCanDance (talk) 02:15, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Checking the references, I cannot confirm most of the information in the article. The few awards with cites link to PR that he himself wrote, or a very brief sentence in a non-independent article that features other persons more prominently. The statement: "The College is Canada's first university-accredited certification program for corporate directors" is not found in the source cited. None of the sources are independent, and the article was created by an SPA, not unlikely a paid one. The scholar results do not, IMO, over-come the PROMO. If we removed all of the non-sourced or non-independent info, there would be nothing left. Lamona (talk) 04:46, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, that's excellent phrasing. I noticed that Prof. Bart tends to embellish the truth a bit. For example, to the best of my research, the United Way Chairman's Award goes to organisations not individuals. So whilst it's likely that Prof. Bart was in an organisation that received the Chairman's Award, he did not receive it personally.

Nevertheless, as you correctly note, there's no way to corroborate this achievement or almost any others. The only independently verifiable awards are the Jubilee medal and the FCPA designation. Whilst I'm sure he's not lying, the fact that there has been so little written about him (that's not written by him), in and of itself, ought to establish that he's not sufficiently notable.

If the decision is to keep, then there should be an aggressive purge of everything that cannot be third-party corroborated. As you said, that'll effectively reduce the article down to a link to his scholarly articles, the Jubilee medal, and his FCPA designation. About 3 sentences. AgarWhisper (talk) 11:20, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Star Mississippi 02:36, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

TL;DR for those joining: there seems to be agreement that the claims in the article are weakly, if at all, supported with third-party sources. The keep arguments appear based on WP:NSCHOLAR criterion 1. I have seen no other arguments supported with other WP:NOTABILITY criteria. AgarWhisper (talk) 15:56, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Timothytyy (talk) 03:42, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

We have this article from the Hamilton Spectator that talks about him and a few other professors that were dismissed at the time [1], but that's about it. I'm not seeing notability, could perhaps be mentioned in relation to the university and the kerfuffle around the dismissal. I don't think he's notable by himself. Delete Oaktree b (talk) 14:42, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Final relist, might be no consensus here.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 05:17, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

keep per WP:NPROF#1 based on a large number of highly cited publications in the field (per GS he has 19 article with 100+ citations which is an accomplishment in almost any field, probably even more in a field like his. Clearly the article needs cleanup and all statements not supported by external references need to be removed but deleting the article is the wrong way to go per WP:NOTCLEANUP. Also clearly the circumstances of his "suspension" at McMaster should be worked into the article: [2] and [3] --hroest 14:42, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. hroest 14:43, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Pretty obvious case. Well over 6000 citations, and a whole *19* publications citted more than 100 times. We have kept quite a lot of articles under WP:ACADEMIC with significantly less citations. Jeppiz (talk) 17:09, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.